Day 47 (June 22, 2010)– 6.5 Miles More Miles Down

     Another section of Wonderland down, I had been wanting to hike from Narada Falls to Box Canyon for a while, but there had been some flood damage so I couldn’t do a couple of weeks ago. This hike was 8.9 miles including 2.4 miles that I had already done but it was a lot of fun.

     This hike needed to be a two car shuttle hike so I found another person to hike with who had a drivers license and borrowed Bree’s car. We dropped the cars off and started out hike. The hike immediately got interesting when the patches of snow went from nothing to 5 feet high and we had to climb up and down them. Once we got up the incline, the trail evened out but we lost the trail completely so I had to get out my compass and navigate that way. Once we found the road we were golden. From there we hiked by the still frozen reflection lakes. From there we followed the road since the trail was under snow and we couldn’t find it. When we found the trail again, we could see about 10 yards of it and then attempted to follow it though we lost it shortly after finding it again. This made the rest of the trek downhill very interesting. Basically, we hike downhill thought the branches, trees, and brier bushes until we found the road and the next part of our trail.

     Once we found the trail again the going was easy. We hike past Martha Falls. I was hoping to see a bear near there. A couple of sightings have occurred there. But alas no joy on that endeavor.

     From Martha, we marched on. From there I rapidly realized why, I was told not to hike this trail earlier. At several places there were visible signs of landslides.

     From there we crossed over to Maple Creek Camp to the section of Wonderland I had already hiked. This section was just like the last time just without the snake. Though we did get a really cool sighting that I don’t have pictures of which was two elk and a calf.

Day 34 (June 8, 2010)– More Wonderland and two repeat trails

     Today, I went hiking with one of the Singaporeans, Jonathan. I call him John for short. I think he is my favorite of the Singaporeans. I decided that we were going to hike a short section of Wonderland that I knew the trail conditions on were not bad. By short I mean 2.4 miles. We started out at Box Canyon. Box Canyon is a canyon carved by a glacier and has a glacier stream running through it. One of the interesting things about this canyon is the rocks have been polished by the glacier.

     The plan was to hike from Box Canyon to Maple Creek Camp and further if the trail condtions where ok (the rangers said they weren’t but we were going to see). So we started our hike, and about a half mile into it we saw two black-tailed deer. They ran away to fast for me to get there pictures. They were not the most intresting thing we saw. The next animals we saw were two elk. They were out of photo range. But still not the most amazing sight, well really it was a surprise seeing as I almost stepped on it. Now what did I almost step on you might ask. A snake, yes a snake.

     I was talking to John when I took a step and as I was taking my next step I noticed this snake in my path so I jumped backwards. My first thought was “I almost stepped on a snake and is it poisonous” and my next thought was “wow, this is cool.” (I was pretty sure upon looking at the snake he wasn’t poisonous but I checked with a ranger when I got back and found out he is a common _____________) Past the snake, we continued to follow the trail to the Maple Creek Camp Site. At the site we ate lunch and then followed the trail a bit further. However, we meet a slight problem. The problem came in the form of a rather large creek. I would be just fine wading it with my water proof boots, but John was wearing tennis shoes. So we decided not to cross the stream.

     We turned around and headed back the way we came, sort of. Just after the bridge we passed on the way to the campsite the trail forks and heads to a river view point. We decided to take a different route back to my car. Part of this route involved hiking up the road, but that was so much fun because we could stop and enjoy the scenery that most people drive right by.

     After we got back to my car, we had plenty of time so I took John out to hike Grove of the Patriarchs and to Silver Falls. Though this time I took the short .3 mile trail out to Silver Falls rather than the 2 mile loop.

Day 26 –Pay Day and Day Off Planning

     Today I got my first pay check. This was great other than they messed up, on charging me room and board. I am working on getting it straightened out but we will see how long it takes. I have the next two days off, so most of my time is spent trying to figure out what and where I want to hike.

     My current plan without taking to the rangers about trail conditions is to drive down to the east side of the park and hike the section of Wonderland Trail that runs from Box Canyon to Narada Fall then up to Paradise and then find someone to drive me back to my car, or if that is not possible hike to Pinnacle Peak (which is in the Tatoosh Range and then go to the top of the Tatoosh).

     After talking to the rangers both trails were ruled out. Wonderland due to flood washout and Pinnacle due to avalanche risk. So I am still kind of up in the air about my first day off. The second day I am going to Pullayup and get some new work shoes.

Day 22 – Paradise to Longmire

     Today was an interesting day. I was scheduled to work both lunch and dinner today, but after lunch. The assistant manager Kyle told me I was getting to close to overtime so he gave me dinner off. I talking to the new busser, Anna, and she was looking for someone to hike with and somewhere to hike.

     Since I now had all this free time, we decide to go hiking. The next step was to pick a trail. One of the trails runs from Paradise to Longmire and the bottom half of the trail is part of Wonderland, so it was high on my must hike list. I suggested it and we went over to the Jackson Visitor Center (JVC), to talk to the rangers about the trail conditions. She told us that we definitely need snowshoes if we didn’t want to posthole the first half of the trail. (Potholing is taking a step and sinking knee deep or more into the snow) So Anna and I borrowed snowshoes from the JVC and went on our way down the mountain for a 5 mile trek. The trail could really be divided into three sections: Above Canyon Road, Below Canyon Road, and Wonderland.

     The above canyon road section was a little tricky due to the fresh snow and the inexperience using snowshoes on both mine and Anna’s part. We followed this creek down. The creek was really intresting because it was flowing though a 5 foot canyon of snow.

     We made it too canyon road, and stopped to take picture of us on top of the snow bank before starting the Below Canyon Road section.

     There was only one problem. We couldn’t find the trail head for the next leg of our journey. The Above section had been marked with poles but not the below. Since the creek had gotten bigger, we didn’t want to just wing it down the mountain because knowing my luck we would end up on the wrong side of the creek. So we hiked down the road, instead of the trail to the Narada Fall, which was the starting point for the section of Wonderland we were going to hike.

    We made it to Narada, and started down the mountain. As we got below the falls, we had some gorgeous views if the falls. Since this trail is less traveled finding the trail at points was hard and sometimes we came to forks in the foot prints we were fallowing and had to pick a direction. We both decided that bridges were a good sign we were going the right way. On the other hand some bridges presented a challenge on how to cross them. The snow was 5 feet deep in places and was melting of the bridges so sometimes we had a 5 foot vertical drop to get down to the bridges. On those, we walked down to the creek and rock hopped across it was safer. On another bridge, we walked across the snow so we were about 10 feet up from the creek bed.

     From the bridge the snow started to disappear, which was really nice. The trail then passed through one of the large glacier fed stream bed (I wish I had pictures but we were in a hurry because we were running out of time to make a shuttle back up the mountain). The last section of the trail was though the a grove of old growth forest, but this wasn’t my favorite part. Anna and I were chatting away when we came across a Black-Tailed Dear about 15 feet away from us. This was cool, but my favorite part was the deer tracks we came across. First we saw the deer tracks, the deer was simply walking down the trail, and a little while later there were cougar tracks on top of the deer. As we continued to walk we could watch the tracks spread out as the cougar chased the deer. No, we did not see the cougar, though I wish we had.

With a 1 minute to spare we made it to Longmire and out shuttle back up the mountain.

Here are the rest of the pictures from this hike, click here

Wonderland Progress

Wonderland Trail

Wonderland Trail is a 93 mile trail that circles Mount Rainier. Most people thru hike the trail in anywhere from 24 hours to 2 weeks. Most people take between 8 – 10 days. Now, I know some of you are saying no one can hike 93 mile in 24 hours. You are right but some did run 93 miles in 24 hours.

My main goal for the summer is to hike all of Wonderland Trail. I am not going to thru hike it, I am going to break it up into one day sections or an overnight whenever possible. One section of the trail, I will have to take days off work in order to hike because of glacier flooding washing a road out. This is my big goal for the summer. Here is a map of Wonderland Trail. The trail is in yellow and I will highlight the sections I have hiked in other colors

Day 20 – Rampart Ridge

     Today was my first day off since my arrival. I decided that I was going to go hiking. I decided to hike a loop called Rampart Ridge. Rampart Ridge is a 5 mile trail. I though 5 miles isn’t that long of a trail. Yea, I was wrong. In the first .5 miles of the trail was part of a small trail called Trail of Shadows.

     Trail of Shadows is a easy trail that runs though some mineral spring and the resort built by the Longmire family. The history in the trail was fairly interesting. My favorite part was the spring that the resort claimed could heal any illness and the sign next to the spring read “DO NOT DRINK – the water can make you sick.” That is really ironic.

     From there the trail goes upward 1,200 feet over the next mile. It was a fairly hard climb for me because I am still not fully adjusted to the change in elevation. The weather had been fairly iffy to begin with and as I reached the top of the ridge it started to rain. So the view from the top of the ridge was kind of sucky. Though I could tell on a clear day it would be amazing. But the forest on the way up was so lush and green.

     From the view point the trail heads down the other side of the ridge and connects with the, drum roll please, Wonderland Trail (for those that don’t know what Wonderland is, I will be going a separate post on it in a few days). The small part of Wonderland I did hike (1.4 miles) was all downhill so it was fun.

To see all my pictures from this hike click here.

Day 13 - 30th Anniversary of Mount Saint Helen’s Eruption

     May 18, 1980 Mount Saint Helen’s erupted. It has been 30 years to the day. It was slightly weird to learn this. It reminded me that I am living on the side of a dormant but still possibly active volcano and surrounded by several more.


     I did not however get to go visit Mount Saint Helen’s today. I had the corporate training to attend. It was the usually company stuff: company background, harassment information, and diversity training.

     I have gotten to know much of the dinning staff. At this point, I know almost everyone’s name. The staff is really cool and a great group of people. I am looking forward to working with them.

     On another not, I want to section hike Wonderland Trail and have found a couple of people willing to hike different sections with me.